Laura Christensen

Laura Christensen grew up with traditional rural and Midwestern ideals, such as polite actions, hard work, and small established communities. These influences expanded to include the metropolitan buzz of New York City, airy valleys and giant peaks of the Rocky Mountains, mysterious woods and rushing rivers of New England, 15th-century Italian frescoes, family gatherings, friends, and maple syrup. In addition, at Saint Louis University she majored in Economics and German. At the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, art history was her focus. Then finally, in 1997, she completed her Masters of Fine Arts from Utah State University in Logan. In 1990, her first art exhibit opened – a one-person show. Since then she’s exhibited at many places, including Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City, The Tweed Museum of Art in Duluth, Minnesota, Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester, and Offenes Haus Oberwart in Oberwart, Austria. Some of her most recent regional exhibits include Humanity: Contemporary Art of the Humane Image at Gallery 51 and 4 + 4 at the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams (2006) and [re]Collections at The Art Center of the Capital Region in Troy, New York (2005). To make ends meet along the way, she has worked as an artist’s assistant, waited tables, co-managed an art gallery, and even helped take the 2000 U.S. Census. Currently she works as the Visual Arts Education Coordinator at MASS MoCA, and sometimes on the museum’s art fabrication and installation crew. She also teaches Introduction to Drawing at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. These last few are some of the most personally rewarding jobs she’s ever had. Laura’s home in North Adams is happily shared with her supportive and playful husband, Greg, and two young cats, Jupiter and Masaccio.